


Tomorrow

by imladrissun



Category: Doctor Strange (2016)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-10-10 20:09:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10446408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imladrissun/pseuds/imladrissun
Summary: Wong deals with Stephen, and finds himself with an exponential set of problems.





	1. Chapter 1

Wong ends up dealing with Strange constantly. From the intense post-battle sickness he collapses into to his daily ineptitude, he's got his work cut out for him, he thinks. 

Strange almost seems to like him, oddly. It seems his weird remarks are affectionate, something that takes Wong a long time to pick up on. Mostly he seems brash, arrogant and annoying. He likes to visit him in the library sometimes and talk at him. Wong rarely gives him an answer, much less whichever one he wants.

After the final battle with Kaecilius, though, he finds himself feeling almost proud of Strange. He is young, in many senses, and clearly does not know what he's done after the fight is over. Wong accompanies him to the sanctum in New York, anticipating the symptoms--they thankfully start after he's already manhandled a bemused and slowly weakening Stephen into pajamas, and then into bed. 

Wong gets a tray ready with anything he could possibly need to treat him; unfortunately, time is the only cure. You can't do something close to saving that many people without repercussions, especially on the physical, bodily scale. 

He pulls a chair over to the bed, and takes Strange's hand. He's already turned down the lights to the lowest possible level. Stephen stares at him, confused. "What's wrong?" he murmurs. He seems oddly serious.

Strange usually gets a particular joy out of being jocular with him. For the first time, he finds he misses his usual attitude of childish fascination with everything, silly words, pouting petulance at rules and sweet naive charm.

Wong has simultaneously too many and no answers to that. "The amount of unnatural force you directed upon both time and this world requires an intense amount of power, concentration--energy. You used the amulet, but you also used your own energy. It is a common consequence of such a huge act. Your body is going to begin feeling the stress of--"

Stephen cuts him off. "Delayed reaction," he says, almost to himself. He looks at his feet, all bundled up in the bedcovers. "Like withdrawl?" he adds suddenly, turning back to Wong. 

"Perhaps," he shrugs. "It has always seemed like the flu, in the few cases I've seen. You will need to be taken care of."

Strange sighs, glaring at the sheets. "This seems like a great gig," he says dryly. "I'll be fine, I'll call the hospital if I need someone."

Wong shakes his head, though his friend doesn't notice. "You know nothing." He ignores the ironic thanks he recieves at that statement. "The Ancient One did not have enough time to train you appropriately, you will need years of study; there are hundreds of books you need to know by heart, verbatim. You are a child. All you have is raw potential... and a good heart," he adds. Actually, what he is is creative, and not in a typical way. That sets him apart, he is unique for that alone, Wong thinks.

Stephen has turned and stared at him throughout his explanation. He looks almost vulnerable, soft eyed, touched, and Wong finds it inexpicably sad that a workplace associate's barely kind words could elicit such a reaction.

He stays silent, something that kind of unnerves Wong; he's used to Stephen's endless quips, pithy little nonsense, his odd references. He's either quirky, dorky or funny in his naive greenness, or a mix of all three.

Wong feels a rush to fill that quiet up, to provoke him into his light banter again. To make everything better again. Safe again. It's irrational, but a quippy, self-focused Stephen is part of that comforting, normal world; the world before so many died.

"I am going to stay with you," Wong tells him suddenly, kindly, and Stephen almost starts in surprise. Wong feels the same way. His voice has started revealing a bit more than he would like. Somewhere along the line, Stephen's visits to the library became more sweet and amusing than tedious. They became routine, and he would bring him little objects he thought should be displayed in the library to 'give it some character'. 

Wong had just given him an eye roll at that. Only he would presume to do so in Kamar-Taj. It had been a mix of weird souvenirs and random junk, as far as Wong could tell. He had filled a drawer back at home with all of it.

When had he started just expecting to get them every couple of weeks? It had become the norm. Stephen would update him on his progess [or lack thereof, as Wong often point out to him, mainly with pointed expressions and deliberately raised eyebrows]. 

He knew, in his heart, that he cherished Stephen; conversely, he had known he was one of the only people Stephen talked to in Kamar-Taj, but he deliberately ignored that piece of information. No one had liked that he was The Ancient One's 'special pet project', but he hadn't sought anyone else out, either, beyond the norm.

People had made comments about how Strange came and 'hung out' with him [as Stephen often called it], and he felt they were inappropriate. He'd never been very interested in socializing; Wong just didn't feel it was a worthy use of time. There was so much he had to do, to manage, to know.

He's not very popular.

Stephen starts coughing as he tries to decide what to say, thankfully saving him from more awkwardness. He does not speak for days, lost in his body's violent reaction to how much mystical force has been controlled with it. And the nightmares get pretty extensive. 

Wong wouldn't let himself admit it, even in his own thoughts, but it's almost killing him to see Stephen suffer this much. It's just endless. He gives him the typical restoratives, but nothing is going to have much of an effect when the 'illness' in question is mystical in nature. This is not medicine of the body. Stephen's knowledge has limited use here.

Not that he's in any state to offer some. Or achieve coherence for more than a few minutes at a time.

Stephen seems almost frozen in a terrible illness. He knows it is a necessary part of the recuperation process, but it's hard to watch. 

He finds himself smoothing a hand over his collarbone, his shoulder, trying to comfort a practically unconscious man.


	2. Chapter 2

He's much less whiny than Wong expected. Instead, he just cries incoherently while Wong puts a a washcloth dipped in cool water on his forehead. Sometimes he seems like he's whispering 'Christine', while projecting a huge amount of hysterical emotions. 

He would have prefered whiny. Unfortunately, Stephen's natural inclination for focus and passion means his suffering is much worse than a tepid, average, boring person's would be. It's true pain, not feigned.

Stephen eventually gets over it. Afterwards, they don't talk about it. Wong finds himself loath, though, to go back to Kamar-Taj. It's quite practical actually, as Stephen is a disaster, just in terms of being a person. 

He tries spells that are too advanced too quickly, is so absent minded he puts metal in the microwave, and studies things so obssesively that he fails to realize you cannot learn from memorization alone.

You must ruminate, consider and pause. Those words don't seem to be in his vocabularly, Wong thinks wryly, watching him accidentally crash down onto the floor from where he'd been hovering, trying a new incantation. 

With Stephen, the learning process seems to be a rough one. Wong has his own things to understand, like not asking questions about his former specialty in medicine. That shuts Stephen up real quick. This time, Wong is not pleased. 

Typical that his attempt to reach out goes up in flames. Wong has a reputation in Kamar-Taj as a forbidding, serious authority figure, and while it's one he usually enjoys, sometimes he wants to just relate to someone. 

To feel like someone wants to talk to him for him, not for his position, or knowledge, or connections. Stephen, at least, is not nearly common sense smart enough to realize how powerful he really is. When he talks to him, he just wants to talk, person to person. 

He's still very sensitive about his hands, very volatile, going back and forth from wanting to expound upon his feelings at length, and acting like the topic is eternally forbidden.

Stephen's kind of a drama queen, sometimes. But when he suggests he talk to this 'Christine', he recoils. 

For some reason, she's off the table. Wong feels that 'friends', in the general sense, would help Stephen feel more normalized in New York, but he seems to disagree. He shakes his head, eating takeout with Wong in the smaller of the kitchens in the sanctum. "I want to do things right, now," he says, eating pizza with feta and spinach. "I want to be a real friend. The actual way."

He's been making Wong try the 'absolute best, seriously, I know' places to eat in New York. Somehow he always sways them into doing takeout for him. It seems like they've been going through every cuisine in the world, but Wong gamely tries it all, while listening to a litany on why he should like it.

Stephen shrugs. "And I don't think it was good, before, it was so hard after what happened." This must mean when his hands were crushed, Wong thinks, trying a piece of pizza. "I was happy with her because I was succeeding for her. And for me. That was everything to me--and now, with my 'cult', I'm this other person to her. The guy she knew just wanted a normal, well awesome, really, life. I don't anymore." 

He looks over at him suddenly, and Wong isn't sure what to say. "What do you think?" Stephen asks, putting him even more awkwardly on the spot, to his displeasure. 

"About the pizza?" he continues, raising his eyebrows. 

Wong resists rolling his eyes. "It's okay."

"Okay?! This is Di Fara's, this is the best of the best," he says, shocked. Wong takes his piece and gets up, walking towards the front room to get the mail. Crazily, they still get catalogues and flyers despite having magical wards that are supposed to deter it. Some things not even magic can achieve, he thinks contemplatively.

"Wait, wait--" he can hear Stephen expostulating in the background, hustling after him. 

It's sweet, really, how he likes to share these things with him. Wong suddenly decides he needs to reciprocate, in some way. He's been personally selecting his books for study for some time, but that doesn't seem like enough, now. Not when Stephen's been continuously trying to bond with him over everything NYC. 

He's tried to get him to, so far, go to a: baseball game, a musical, an illegal car racing event, a robot fight, a play and a paint ball tournament. 

Wong has gone to none of those. But for the first time, he can see the point of all of it. Stephen just wants someone to spend time with. He gets the mail from out on the stoop [it's still cool out this spring, with some soggy snow still lingering; the air smells a bit like gasoline] and comes back in to face his friend.

Stephen's been kind of bonding with him all this time, he thinks, as the man in question tries to convey to him how "long the lines are, do you know how many hours people wait for these pies? Wong, you don't understand, even if you compare this to Keste, or god forbid, Lombardi's, it's--"

Somehow, he continues on this topic for a half an hour. Wong decides to make some Khapsey tonight, and he has a feeling Stephen will take it in the manner it's intended. He can't imagine his American student not liking fried dough ears covered with powdered sugar. 

He still has nightmares almost daily, but doesn't shake as much anymore. Wong feels like anything that takes his mind off it is a good thing. He's woken up several times a week now, for weeks, to find Stephen in a chair in his room, reading. 

He never asks him why he's doing it, it seems too personal. Stephen never offers any explanations, either.


	3. Chapter 3

Wong is a weird nut to crack, Stephen thinks. He's very shy, very guarded, but his feelings still come through sometimes. After taking care of him like a mother, he acts like it never happened. 

He tries to talk about things like feelings and relationships with him sometimes, mentioning Christine as an example, but gets nothing in return. He's trying to tell him that his old life is behind him, and he's solidly with him--with the cause--forever. He feels like Wong is part of his future, and finally he feels ready to let go fo the past. To be firmly in the now, and be happy. 

None of this seems to get through, but sometimes it's hard to tell. 

Stephen still doesn't feel safe without seeing him at least once a day. When Wong spends time in the Kamar-Taj library, or advising the new leadership of that sanctum or the other [which is what Stephen suspects he has to spend much of his time doing], he gets nervous.

He feels like his endless deaths in that timeless universe are never far from his thoughts, they invade his mind. He's secretly gotten a hold of cognitive therapy workbooks [he thinks it's been working well, and estimates his intrusive thoughts have decreased by about 10%], but has hidden them from Wong. He doesn't want him to think he's weak, and the whole thing embarasses him. 

The clinical part of his brain knows he needs them though. Unfortunately.

Despite studying constantly and following Wong's ciriculuum, they have a lot of down time. You can't constantly practice spells, or physically train, or even read endlessly. You need breaks to let it all sink on. 

Wong is always on about that--something about how the mind has to consider and reconsider all the implications of the terms in spells. Oh and he's having him actually learn a boatload of other ancient languages. 

Spoiler alert, Akkadian is rough. Aramaic is easier. Wong's version of praise [he's figured out] is to say he's 'progressing'. 

Stephen's been trying to make up for his pre-explosion in London freakout, he tries to show that he doesn't want to leave anymore, but Wong resolutely carries on as if he's not even there. Although technically he doesn't do well when Wong does do personal things for him, or shows that he cares about him. 

It's just very overwhelming. Wong's a serious guy, he does everything with consideration beforehand. Stephen improvises instead, when there isn't a clear path--it's always been his thing. 

Thankfully, the delirium of his convalescence equaled almost a total blackout in terms of memories. Compared to his seemingly [well, it felt like] infinite series of deaths, and then deaths again, his recovery after Hong Kong doesn't even register. 

Except in terms of the fact that Wong actually cared enough to help him, personally. The only problem he still has is the occurence of nightmares once in a while. 

Okay, more like every other day. 

When he wakes up, he grabs a book and gets to work. He can't bear to be alone, and can't calm down, until he gets to his chair in Wong's room. This is at least the one thing he can succeed at--he can learn these languages, these spells, and memorize the books Wong presents to him. 

It gives him a feeling of control, which is nice, because he feels like he has none in any other area of his life. Christine feels like someone he let down, but to be honest, he's swamped with hurt when he thinks of her. All those unanswered emails were like being stabbed emotionally, well, not really. Now that he has been, in real life. 

Wong seems to tolerate him like a younger brother, when he's not giving him some seriously mixed signals. Has the guy never had a friend? He seems like it's all new to him. Even Stephen had vaguely had... some work acquaintances. 

Okay. Maybe not, Wong's got him there. He's never been much of a 'friend' to anyone, he supposes. This will be a learning curve for both of them. The old Stephen would have jumped right into the intimate part of things with him, but he has a feeling Wong is moving at the speed of a sand dune in terms of their relationship.

Which is kind of okay to him, if he's real with himself for a moment. He still feels weak, almost vulnerable, despite the magic. Yes he won the fight, but it took too much to win. It was so phyrric it feels like a defeat, somehow. In some ways, at least. He can't just shrug and carry on. He feels tired, in some inestimable way. 

Not in body, not quite in spirit, but still there. Somewhere.


	4. Chapter 4

Stephen holds his identity as a doctor close to his heart. He still corrects people when they speak to him. In Kamar-Taj, even, he had intervened with others in several cases to point out symptoms he'd noticed and gave advice on how to treat several problems that cropped up.

It was a greatly helpful side effect of having him there.

He finally takes Wong's advice, though a bit differently than he'd intended it. The hobby he acquires is to sit in on spinal surgeries done by newer doctors, and give advice on complex patient cases. Wong is loath to have him leave the sanctum, but doesn't want him to be fearful, so he doesn't say anything.

Wong's come into the blue room, where guests are often recieved, to find Stephen and Christine back fresh from the operating theater. They turn on modern music [Wong can only assume it's by people who go by one nomiker, to wit] and dance together happily.

Well, if you count bopping up and down like children while shaking as if they're having seizures dancing.

He constantly reads the latest medical journals about localizing gadolinium-enchancing gliomas and how age affects vestibular schwannoma size and the presenting symptoms. Wong often finds him reviewing patient files or writing long letters to editors.

He also goes into listless episodes, where he lazes around doing nothing all day--but unhappily. It's not relaxation, it's anxious lack of direction. Wong tries to intervene then, and get him to assist with some random task.

It might not be what a doctor ordered, but it certainly seems to benefit Stephen. He still wears that watch he seemed to prize so highly--that smashed up watch. Wong refrains from commenting. It must have some emotional weight.

Wong doesn't want him to go through any emotional upheavals right now. That's also why he hasn't told him anything more about the Eye. For Stephen to pick it up, use it correctly, and for it to cooperate without his physical incineration [some have gone out that way] is truly extraordinary. It is very alive.

For now, Wong keeps him out of mystical affairs. He sends other students and masters to look for Mordo. Stephen will need time to decompress and regroup after the enormity of what happened hits him.

One thing Wong is good at is experiencing and interpreting thoughts of the future. The word 'shamballa' will take on a terrible connotation in some way. Ylang ylang flowers will become poison in some instance, their light yellow star shape signaling destruction. He can see him breaking open a fortune cookie only to reveal the eerie message, "What is it that disturbs you, Stephen?"

Wong is concerned about that, and many other things, but mostly he's worried about the enormous stack of articles Stephen's printed out to read on something about eye desensitization reprocessing. His nurse friend noticed the pile while Wong was in the next room, unpacking a book delivery from Indonesia. Their heated argument about the brain's inhibitory balance, pseudoscience, and EMDR resulted in a slammed door as she left.

Stephen seemed to sulk a bit afterwards but later tried to make him try some takeout--labeled by him as Chinese. Wong has his doubts, having visited China and eaten in several areas within the country, but he tries it in the spirit of camaradarie.

The dumplings are not as good as _baozi_ [too many vegetables, and a different taste to it, and fried--steamed tastes better, they need to get a clue]; the little donut spheres were not as good as _youtiao_. The things he does for him, Wong thinks, before being hit with an uncomfortable realization. Stephen only eats beside him if it's handheld food; he's never seen him eat with a fork or with chopsticks. He stares down at the array of boxes his friend insisted he try and decides he needs to help normalize his probably messy attempts at eating. Stephen has to learn he does not need to feel anything about how his hands shake, it's just a thing that's different about him, not something he has to hide.

**Author's Note:**

> The two pics reference two famous Dr Strange comics: 'Into Shamballa' & 'What is it that disturbs you Stephen'
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> **FYI I take commissions, just message me : )


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